


not what you can predict

by theyhadcookies



Series: to save something for myself [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Derek Needs To Use His Words, Everybody Lives, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 12:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyhadcookies/pseuds/theyhadcookies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek’s making pancakes when he notices.</p><p>There’s a photo of him and Cora from their trip to Mexico stuck on his refrigerator. They’re both leaning against the Camaro, sunglasses on and smiling. Behind them, the sand and sky stretch out endlessly. The sky, Derek realizes, is blue.</p><p>Some time between Peter biting Scott, the Kanima, Gerard Argent, and Deucalion and Jennifer almost tearing the town apart, getting kidnapped and seeing his mother again for the first time, Derek met his soul mate.</p><p>He has absolutely no idea who it could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not what you can predict

**Author's Note:**

> You do not have to read the first part for this to make sense! The story prior to this is an angstfest that you can totally spare yourself from. :)
> 
> This is mostly inspired by that post on tumblr about people seeing in black & white until they meet their soulmate and then another post about how your soulmate isn't always the love of your life. Canon compliant until the end of season 3A and takes elements from the succeeding seasons liberally. 
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful [playitagainsam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/playitagainsam) and Gonzu. Title from Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye's "When Love Arrives."

Derek’s making pancakes when he notices.

There’s a photo of him and Cora from their trip to Mexico stuck on his refrigerator. They’re both leaning against the Camaro, sunglasses on and smiling. Behind them, the sand and sky stretch out endlessly. The sky, Derek realizes, is blue.

He looks around him and finds that his towels are green and purple. The cupboards are a warm chocolate brown. Everything else is still in grayscale.

Some time between Peter biting Scott, the Kanima, Gerard Argent, and Deucalion and Jennifer almost tearing the town apart, getting kidnapped and seeing his mother again for the first time, Derek met his soul mate.

He has absolutely no idea who it could be.

*

He doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t see the point. They’ll want to find out who it is and he doesn’t want to. He can’t remember the exact moment or what color he saw first. It could be anyone in the pack. It could be anyone who’s tried to kill him since he came back to Beacon Hills. Soulmates don’t mean an instant love connection, after all. His parents hated each other at first. Laura and Mike spent as much time arguing as they did making out. He shudders.

Before the fire, Derek had been desperate to meet his soulmate, eager to see the world in full color, the way his mother and father saw it, the way Laura had seen it. The day Kate Argent told him she could see the red of his swim trunks that day in the pool, he’d been ecstatic. The only reason he hadn’t told anyone about it was Kate pleading with him not to and he thought he would do anything for his soulmate. After the fire…well, either his soulmate was a murderer or his soulmate didn’t deserve someone who’d gotten his entire family killed.

He adopts a puppy instead.

At the store, he throws in the color wheel with all of Ruffles’ brand new stuff, just because.

 *

He finds his soulmate, anyway.

He sees the yellow highlighter Stiles twirls between his long fingers and it’s like a kick to the solar plexus. He _knows_ he’s never seen yellow until just now. He sees the brown of Stile’s eyes and the freckles on his pale face. He sees the pink of Stiles’ lush lips. He sees the blue of his plaid shirt.

He remembers now, too, the first color that he saw: Stiles’ blue jeep after Kate had shot him through the arm. 

No wonder he couldn’t remember it. He thought he was dying.

But this is it. He’s sure of it. Kate had been lying about him being her soulmate, he’s sure of it now. It’s Stiles. His soulmate is Stiles. There’s a hum of energy underneath his skin and he feels restless with it. _Stiles._

Stiles who dug up his sister, who would have cut off his arm to keep him alive, whom he fought his uncle and alpha for, who held him up in eight feet of water for hours to keep them away from the kanima, who brought a baseball bat to a wolf fight, who has never lied to him when it counts.

Derek feels the weight of the world ease up on his shoulders.

But Stiles isn’t reacting. At least, he isn’t reacting to Derek. He’s still laughing at Scott’s joke about the chickens, as if his entire world hasn’t just changed.

The exhilaration deflates faster than it took for it to build up.

*

By the time Sheriff Stilinski suggests that Derek officially join the department, Derek has helped cover up sixteen cases involving the supernatural, including the robbery-turned-kidnapping-turned-attempted-arson that made Parrish realize he himself was a supernatural creature. He spends endless hours with the Sheriff and Parrish – “Derek, you’ve seen me naked. I think you can call me Jordan now.” – writing reports and figuring out which cases might be linked to the nemeton and what are non-supernatural cases.

When he isn’t helping the Sheriff, he’s at Deaton’s making use of the extensive library he’s been keeping secret for a while now. It takes some persuading, mostly threats of jail time, but Deaton finally caves.

On Wednesdays, he and Jordan have poker night with a few other deputies.

He’s getting his life back together.

If he lays in bed spooning his pillow at night, there’s no one there but Ruffles to see.

*

The pack come home from their third year of colllege, fresh-faced and relaxed. Beacon Hills is calm again. Scott holds weekly pack meetings on Thursdays. Friday nights, Scott has declared, are date nights.

Most pack meetings go like this: They vote on a movie to watch. Derek makes popcorn. Scott and Stiles start a tickle fight. Nobody dares tickle Lydia or Boyd (at least, not after Erica’s first and only attempt). Allison ends up on top of the puppy pile.

“Man, nothing every happens in this town,” Scott says, waggling his eyebrows at Stiles, who glares at him. 

“Dude. Not funny.”

It’s a joke that they only seem to get. Derek just rolls his eyes.

Later, when everyone is making their way out of his brand new apartment (with extra pats on Ruffles’ head from Allison), Stiles stays. 

“Leave something behind?”

Stiles is scratching the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Derek and scuffing his foot on the ground. He smells nervous.

“I was wondering, uh, do you maybe wanna go out with me some time?” He looks up at Derek. “Like on a date?”

Derek can’t tell whose heart is beating faster.

It’s the first time Stiles has been home since he started. He looks different from when Derek last saw him. The buzzcut’s gone; in it’s place is a bird’s nest clumped together by too much gel. Stiles is broader too, nowhere near the breadth of Derek’s shoulders but still wide. He hasn’t grown into his hands yet, still puppy pawed but the rest of him looks all grown up. A sexual tornado of bangability, Erica said during one of her weekly Skype calls with Derek and looking at Stiles now, he’s powerless.

One date, he thinks to himself. He can allow himself one date.

Stiles’ grin when he says yes is positively blinding.

* 

One date turns into two dates turns into four dates turns into ten dates. Finally, Derek stops counting them altogether.

Derek learns that Stiles likes to eat all the popcorn before the movie starts. When this happens the first time, Stiles cheeks flush and he offers to go out and buy some more. It’s not his only bad habit. Stiles orders Hawaiian pizza and eats all the pineapples before he eats a slice. Derek hates pineapples. He likes to scatter all his homework on the bed before he starts working, even when Derek is trying to sleep. He leaves crumbs on the bed from midnight snacks.

He also learns that Stiles is sensitive to certain types of cotton so he brings a pillow around when he sleeps over. He learned the entirety of “Teenage Dream” on Scott’s guitar after he heard that Lydia preferred Katy Perry over Lady Gaga. Derek makes him play it for him one night and makes him play all the songs he knows. Stiles sings well  and is passable with the guitar but he prefers to play the drums. Derek learns about his own fascination with Stiles’s fingers. He learns that Stiles likes to push his nose against Derek’s when they’re making out. Stiles likes being the little spoon. When he thinks Derek is asleep, Stiles likes to run his fingers along Derek’s back. Sometimes he writes words.

The last thing he traces is always the triskelion tattoo between his shoulder blades.

*

The sheriff knows. He can’t _not_ know.

“Stiles, have you seen my – oh, for the love of God. _Stiles!”_ yells the Sheriff as he walks into Stiles’ room.

Derek scrambles to get his shirt back on. At least he’s still wearing pants.

“Hello, daddy-o.” Stiles is leaning against his desk with his hands behind his head, trying for cool and failing miserably. His jeans are unbuttoned and he’s flushed pink down until his chest.

“You couldn’t lock the door?” The sheriff is pointedly not looking at Derek.

“My doorknob is broken?” Stiles has resorted to playing with a band-aid on his finger. Derek’s ears are burning.

“Why is your doorknob broken?” his father asks before he glances at Derek. “You know what, never mind. I don't want to know. Just…not when I’m home next time? Or at all?”

“Sure thing, dad.” Derek doesn’t even need to hear the tick of Stiles’ heart to know it’s a lie.

*

When Stiles goes back to UCLA, they text throughout the day. Derek calls him every night. Stiles introduces him to SnapChat but Derek refuses to send him pictures of his dick.

 _Come on, man, just the tip?_ Stiles text.

 _That’s what all the boys say,_ Derek replies.

 _There are other boys asking you to send them dick pics????_ Stiles sends a close up of his face, stretched into an exaggerated pout.

He sends one of himself with a raised eyebrow. _Don’t be an idiot._

They watch rom-coms together over Skype. There are nights when he sees Stiles reach over as if to take his hand before he remembers they aren’t in the same room. It’s the most romantic thing that’s happened to him.

When Derek used to imagine meeting his soulmate, he always thought of the big moments. First date, first kiss, first time, first fight, first anniversary. He never thought about these quiet moments; he’d never imagined the comfort of sitting with Stiles, just watching him breathe.

*

The other shoe drops.

Stiles is home for winter break. He and Isaac are the only ones in the pack who could make it back.

"...and, dude. We gotta have some soul bonding time, soon okay?" Stiles says to Scott over the phone.

When he hangs up, he curls up next to Derek on the bed and wraps his arms around Derek's middle.

"Soul bonding?" asks Derek, making sure to keep his tone neutral.

"Yeah, man. Scott and I go way beyond bro bonding." He isn’t looking at Derek when he says this, too busy nuzzling his face on Derek’s chest.

"Like he's your soul mate?" 

"Of course he's my soulmate." Striles tugs on the strings of Derek’s sweatpants. “Derek, literally everybody knows this."

And just like that, his world comes crashing around him. This feels like drowning again only this time Stiles isn't there to pull him out. His heart is beating harder in his chest. There isn’t enough air in the room.

"You didn't know?" Striles pulls away to look at him, brows furrowed.

I thought we were soulmates, he wants to say. He’s never said it before. He closes his eyes, lets himself feel his heart breaking.

Instead he says "I have to go."

"Derek, wait -"

He runs from Stiles’ room all the way to the Preserve and spends the next two nights there.

*

There are fixty-six missed calls and fourteen unread messages from Stiles.

The last one says: _Just please let me know you’re alive._

Derek manages to send him a thumbs up emoji. His hands are still numb and it feels like there’s a pipe impaled in his chest again.

He files for a two-week leave with the Sheriff and tells him that he will not be available for calls. He makes sure to include Christmas. When asked, he just tells him that he’d like to spend some time in his family’s old cabin. Maybe there's something in his expression because the Sheriff doesn't press further.

Derek stocks up and hikes his way to the cabin, somewhere by the mountains. He brings Ruffles along with him, even though he has to carry him in a makeshift dog bag over certain parts of the trail. He airs it out when he gets there, grabs all the pillows in the house along with the blankets and arranges them carefully on the bed. If he breathes in deep enough, he can still kind of smell them.

He shifts into his full wolf form, curls himself around Ruffles and goes to sleep.

*

It makes sense that Scott and Stiles are soulmates. They’re perfect for each other. Derek wonders how he even missed it. Their scents have been so intertwined that he can’t scent Scott without Stiles’ scent. What are they doing though? Why is Scott still with Allison? Why did Stiles even ask him out? They’ve found their soulmate.

Derek thinks about Paige. He thinks about Kate. He thinks about Stiles.

He’d been relieved, when he and Stiles started dating. A soulmate, he thought, the one good thing he had for himself.

It figures that Derek’s soulmate has somebody else. Deaton keeps talking about a regression to the mean. He should’ve known better. This has been his mean all along.

*

After three days of scaring rabbits and bothering Ruffles, Derek shifts back and builds himself back up from the ground. He’s survived worse than heartbreak, he reminds himself. He’ll survive this too.

Derek breathes in, breathes out. In, out, in, out.

He checks his color wheel on the fourth day. There’s only one color missing. He knows it’s red but can’t even begin to imagine it. It’s fine that he’ll never know what it looks like. Red’s always been Stiles’s color anyway). 

*

He gets back to Beacon Hills in time to start patrolling on New Year’s Eve. It’s just him and Jordan doing rounds. The other deputies are watching out for trouble at the bonfire.

Jordan doesn’t ask him any questions, just greets him quietly when the fireworks start.

“Happy New Year, Derek.”

Derek is back in his apartment at 3 am. There are eight presents waiting for him under a makeshift tree, Erica’s work no doubt. Two each from Erica and Boyd, one from Malia and Kira, one from Scott and Allison, one from Lydia and one wrapped in butcher’s paper with no name on it. He can smell Stiles all over it.

He’s about to open Stiles’ gift when his phone rings.

It’s Stiles.

Derek knows he shouldn’t pick up. “Hello?”

“You weren’t supposed to answer,” Stiles slurs from the other end. He’s drunk.

There are so many things he wants to say, starting with _Why didn’t you tell me you found your soulmate?_ He goes with “It might have been an emergency.”

Stiles snorts. “It could have been an emergency two weeks ago.”

“I was out of town.” Derek’s throat feels tight.

“You’re back?” He can hear the break in Stiles’ voice, his labored breathing, the distant sound of people laughing around him, fireworks.

“Went on patrol with Parrish tonight.” He lays back on the couch, breathes in and out, in and out. He misses Stiles.

“I miss you, you fucking asshole,” Stiles might be crying but he hangs up before Derek can tell for sure.

*

Derek is fine.

*

It goes like this: Derek doesn’t let the pack use his apartment for meetings anymore. Between the Stiles and Derek, Derek’s been on his own longer. Besides, he should be around people his own age. Scott comes over to give him updates, sometimes. He doesn’t talk about Stiles.

* 

“What happened between you and Stiles anyway?” Jordan asks him during one of their poker nights. They’ve had a few beers but it’s not like it affects either of them anyway. Jordan’s never really asked about it until just now. It’s been four months. Stiles is back at UCLA.

Derek shrugs. “He met his soulmate. I wasn’t going to get in the way of that.” 

Jordan frowns, pauses in re-shuffling the cards. “I thought Scott was his soulmate.”

“I didn’t know.” His face is burning with shame. _Literally everybody knows this._

“Huh.” Jordan frowns deeper. “Isn’t he dating Allison though?”

“Yes.” He drinks from his bottle of beer. Derek still doesn’t know what they’re playing at. All he knows is that he doesn’t want any part of it.

“Huh.” Jordan says again. He deals out the cards and they don’t say anything more after that.

*

Six months and four days after Derek left Stiles in his bedroom, he bumps into Allison in the grocery store. He hasn’t been avoiding the pack, really. But outside of pack meetings, there really isn’t much reason to see them.

He’s pretty sure Stiles won them in the split.

“Derek!” He looks up from where he’s been weighing the pros and cons of buying a bagful of Reese’s. On the one hand, it’s his favorite. On the other hand, it’s Stiles’ too. Allison is beaming and pushing her cart towards him without any signs of stopping. He hasn’t been to a pack meeting in months. Beacon Hills doesn’t appear to need much protecting anymore anyway. He doesn’t move until Allison gets to him, doesn’t speak. None of Stiles’ friends have come to yell at him since they stopped dating. They haven’t been friendly with him, but then, they were never really friends to begin with.

“It’s nice to see you,” says Allison, a smile still on her face and her eyes are shining. Her heart doesn’t even skip.

“It’s…nice to see you too.” Derek doesn’t think he’s ever said that before. He’s surprised to find he means it.

“I saw you and I just wanted to make sure to formally invite you to the engagement party.”

Now that she mentions it, he can see a silver ring on her left finger. It’s a diamond ring.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” She beams at him. “So can you make it? Scott hasn’t seen you in forever. We both want you to be there.”

Derek is confused. “Scott?”

“Yes. Who else would I be marrying?” Allison raises an eyebrow at him.

There has to be a limit to the number of times Derek’s world order can change. He’s pretty sure he’s reaching his limit. 

He has to see Stiles.

*

“Explain.” He’s out of breath. He’s been missing pieces of the puzzles but things aren’t any clearer and he needs Stiles to tell him what’s going on.

“What the fuck, Derek.” It’s not a question. Stiles is glaring at him. The knuckles on the hand he’s got are white.

“Allison and Scott are engaged.”

“I know that.”

“Explain.”

“I really don’t know how I can make it clearer to you.”

“Scott is your soulmate.”

 “You’re not saying anything I don’t already know.” His face is splotchy, the way it gets when Stiles is furious. It’s the first time Derek’s ever seen the pinkness of his flush. “I don’t think I’m the one who owes anyone an explanation here.”

“I love you.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

Derek isn’t expecting the fist to his face.

* 

He comes to draped in an odd angle on the Stilinski’s couch.

“Are you awake?”

The ceiling is spinning a little when he opens his eyes so he closes them again and groans. Stiles is standing over him, face red and tear tracks on his cheeks.  He prods Derek’s shoulder.

“Yes, I’m awake.”

“I suppose you could arrest for assaulting an officer. You weren’t trespassing so I don’t have a defense. But so help me God Derek, if you don’t fucking explain yourself right now, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

It takes a couple of minutes before he can sit up but Derek manages to get upright and sitting properly on the couch. 

Derek doesn’t know where to start. He still isn’t sure what it means that Scott and Allison are engaged. But it’s starting to look like Derek has made himself miserable for six months for no reason. He decides to tell Stiles what he knows. Judging by bruise healing on his face, there isn’t much more to lose.

“Soul mates are meant to be together. They’re partners for life.” It’s what his mother taught him, all those years ago. “You’re my soulmate.”

Stiles’ heart skips a beat at that but he doesn’t say anything so Derek goes on.

“The first color I ever saw was your Jeep. It took me almost a year to realize so I thought maybe you were having a delayed reaction because you were younger.” He rubs the bruise with a hand. “You never brought it up so I took what I could get. It never occurred to me that I might not be yours. But then you told me about you and Scott and I thought, yeah, why not. Nothing I have ever wanted stays mine for very long.”

Stiles makes a hurt noise at that. He’s never said this many words to Stiles before. He usually lets Stiles lead the conversation. He presses on.

“My mother taught me that nothing gets in the way of soulmates. I couldn’t do that. You’re my soulmate, and I guess that means I’m broken. But I couldn’t get between you and Scott. But Allison just told me that she and Scott are engaged and I have no idea what’s going on anymore.”

It takes a few moments but Stiles finds his voice again. “So you thought the best thing to do was to come here after almost half a year of no contact and demand an explanation.”

Derek shrugs. He’s never been known to be a planner.

“I don’t know how to make myself clearer so here it is: Scott McCall is my soulmate. He and I have been able to see colors since we turned thirteen. I love Scott more than anything in this world but we’re not in love.

The first time I saw the color blue was when you flashed your eyes in the parking lot after Kate Argent shot you. Scott McCall is my soulmate but you are the love of my fucking life and I am so mad that you couldn’t see that.”

“I didn’t know.” Derek closes his eyes, breathes in deeply, allowing some of Stiles’ scent to fill his lungs. He can’t tell if that’s his heart breaking or mending. Stiles sits down next to him.

“Would you have gone out with me if I wasn’t your soulmate?” asks Stiles.

“Probably not. You’re so young.” Stiles’ heart skips another beat and his face closes off. “Being my soulmate gave me an excuse to say yes.”

“So what you’re saying is that you wanted to date me but if I hadn’t been your soulmate, you wouldn’t have dated me? 

“Yes.” Maybe he hasn’t quite lost him yet. 

“You are ridiculous.”

“Will you date me again anyway?” He looks at Stiles whose eyes have gone wide and whose heart has started pounding.

“Are you concussed?” He whispers, reaches out to touch Derek’s temple. Derek leans in to his touch. “I’m sorry for hitting you, by the way. That was probably an overreaction.”

“I don’t think so.” He fits his cheek into Stiles’ palm and nuzzles. “You’re forgiven. And I’m sorry, too. For my behavior.”

Stiles inches in even closer. “I forgive you. But I’m still kind of mad at you.”

“Does that mean you won’t date me?” He keeps his eyes on Stiles who is staring right back at him. Stiles’ shirt is red. Derek can see in full color now.

“I heard I was your soulmate.” Stiles smiles, presses both his hands to Derek’s cheeks, kisses him right on the lips. “I heard you don’t get in the way of that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [dearmonday](http://dearmonday.tumblr.com/)


End file.
